


Faith, Should I Take a Leap?

by KDblack



Series: Dragon Ball Collection [4]
Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: Ambiguous Character Death, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Gen, Identity Issues, M/M, Saiyan-typical fightmance, Vegito is definitely a relationship as well as a character, being a fusion must be rough, does Gogeta count as a relationship or a character? yes, i guess this is an anthology now, it's fun until it isn't
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:34:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 6,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24801664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KDblack/pseuds/KDblack
Summary: Gogeta smiles like Vegeta (almost) and moves forward like Goku (almost). He knows the exact reasons he was born, and so he knows the exact reasons he will die.Vegito was supposed to last forever.
Relationships: Bulma Briefs/Vegeta, Chi-Chi/Son Goku (Dragon Ball), Gogeta/Vegito (Dragon Ball), Son Goku & Vegeta (Dragon Ball), Son Goku/Vegeta (Dragon Ball)
Series: Dragon Ball Collection [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1696063
Comments: 146
Kudos: 195





	1. Chapter 1

Gogeta knows the exact reasons he was born. A father's love. A warrior's pride. An understanding, tenuous but heartfelt, tying two disparate men together with a bond stronger than steel. 

The ghost of Bulma stands at his left side, smelling of machine grease and perfume, a fierce tilt to her lips and a terribly small Bra held at her hip. Trunks hovers beside them, watching with narrow but guileless eyes. Behind him floats a long-haired shadow that reeks of blood, and Gogeta understands the weight of his mistakes. He loves them so desperately it might kill him to see them and know he's not the man in their hearts.

Chi-Chi's presence on his right side is marked by light and dish soap, a voice sharp as a whip crack, a smile softer than anything. Gohan's image is fainter, drawn in charcoal rather than full living colour, but in his eyes there's something which can only be called acceptance. Goten is blurrier still, a pencil drawing with a curious stare. Videl is barely even a sketch, but Pan in her arms is bursting with life, and Gogeta understands the weight of regret. This family is half-finished and full of holes, but he loves them enough to die all over again if it will keep them smiling.

It's important to be happy with what you have, and Gogeta has a lot. Two of the most beautiful and terrifying women in the universe waiting for men who aren't him. Four amazing children who wouldn't recognize him if they saw him as he is. One adorable granddaughter he's never going to get a chance to hold.

He has the power to end this world which is already moving on without him. He could sink the continent, raze the cities, do more damage than Buu or Frieza ever dreamed of. He could end this fight in a split-second and jump straight to the afterlife – spend the rest of his days somewhere the friends who don't know him can never reach. He could play upon (Kakarot) Goku's endless yearning to transcend his own existence and (prince) Vegeta's barely-hidden craving for touch, loyalty, _someone who will understand him and never, ever leave him,_ and turn all their drive to making 'Gogeta' permanent. 

He is a god made flesh in pursuit of the impossible. The culmination of a warrior's dream.

Because he's a dream, he can't do anything which could hurt them. Because he's a dream, he must end.

He smiles like Vegeta (almost) and moves forward like Goku (almost). He knows the exact reasons he was born, and so he knows the exact reasons he will die.

Thirty minutes isn't long enough. But it will have to do. They won't fuse again if they have the choice. If this is his last show, he'll make it a good one.


	2. Chapter 2

Vegito was born with a smile on his lips and a scream dying in his throat. Terror became shock became acceptance, exhilaration, pride. The fears of the past fell away. Vegeta's icy armour melted and mixed with Kakarot's partly-affected innocence. What was left of them was more like remnants or cores than individuals, but when the pieces clicked together, they felt complete. By doing this, they tied themselves together for all time. By doing this, they accepted that they were enough for each other, even if they'd never been enough for themselves. 

The last clear sensation either had as a separate being was happiness. They were glad to face this together, overjoyed to die curled up in each other's hearts. It wasn't what Bulma or Chi-Chi would've recognized as love, but Vegito couldn't call it anything else. 

There was a moment where all three of them braced for pain that didn't come. Then the rush faded and the world took shape, and it was just Vegito.

Why had Vegeta been afraid of this? Why had Kakarot made it his last resort? They should have done this a long time ago. This power was unthinkable – this closeness unmatched. Blazing heat shot through him, building higher and higher, to an end so far out of sight it might as well not exist.

No restraints. No limits. No pain.

The future was endless, and it stretched out in all directions, as far as the eye could see.

“All right!” Vegito couldn't help but laugh in his two-toned voice as somewhere deep inside him, two sets of raw, oozing wounds healed over at last. Everyone else was gone, but they were together, finally, like they'd always been meant to be.

This was his fight now. 

Kakarot's determination resounded in each heartbeat, Vegeta's fury thrummed through his veins. Remorse blunted his edges and regret slowed his thoughts, but that was fine. Losing sight of those that was how they'd ended up like this – aching, defeated, forced to set all else aside and become someone else to win. He took their pain, their sorrows, their hatred, and transmuted them into a viciousness that was all his own. 

He was their legacy. Their triumph. All that remained of the last true Saiyans in the universe. And then he wasn't.

Unfusing was like coming to life in reverse. Without warning, everything he had was stripped away from him. The wounds he'd stitched over tore open and the men who'd become him were flung apart. They staggered to their feet, raw and bleeding, and the future broke.

“I'm me and you are you, Kakarot, and that's just the way I like it.”

 _Liar,_ thought the part of Vegito which lingered behind their eyes. He understood where that line of reasoning came from. How could he not, when he was them? That didn't make it any easier to see the earring crumble to dust in Vegeta's hand.

He still remembered the smile on Kakarot's face as he prepared to let go of everything. The way Vegeta's fingers had trembled while he punched the Potara earring through his unpierced earlobe. Super Buu's terror as the dimension-shattering monster realized he was utterly outmatched. The fierce joy of a newborn god, getting ready to shake the heavens.

Vegito was supposed to last forever.


	3. Chapter 3

The first thing Vegito thinks when he lays eyes on Gogeta is _he has stars in his eyes._ It's his first time seeing someone else in Blue, and the effect is incredible. Divine ki radiates from that glowing figure with all the terrible beauty of a supernova. Gogeta's hair burns like nebulas. Patterns of brightness and shadow ripple over miles of tanned skin. His pupils are pinpoints of searing light. 

It's beautiful. He's beautiful. But the worst part is his smile. So gentle, so resigned – the smile of a man who's accepted his end. Accepted it so thoroughly that the expression lingers, even after Gogeta processes that he's not actually dead, or at least not completely. Beneath his glove, Vegito's hand curls into a fist. He's smiling too. On him, it's far less beautiful.

The first thing Vegito says to Gogeta is, “Took you long enough. Let's fight!”

He throws the first punch without waiting for an answer. Gogeta dodges by a hair's breadth. For a fraction of a second, there's nothing in his eyes but wide, startled blue. Then he rallies himself and the fight begins in earnest.

Gogeta hits hard. Ki dances over his shoulders, his bare arms, pooling in his hands even when he isn't using it. Everything he pulls out is as devastating as it is flashy. Each move leaves blind spots in Vegito's vision. Falling stars, burning the world away. Gogeta is also slightly slower than him, or at least slightly less graceful. He flies through the air less like a bird and more like a heat-seeking missile. Not much of an advantage, but for Vegito, it's enough. He wins that fight, and the next, and the next. All too soon, he finds himself standing over his black haired opponent as Gogeta coughs blood and spit into the earth. 

“Finished already?” Vegito asks, putting on a mournful expression. He prods Gogeta's side with his toe.

Another hacking cough. Gogeta rolls over, chest heaving. There's dirt ground into his skin. It's a good look on him. “I've barely started.”

The rasp of his echoing voice and the bruises already rising on his body prove it's a lie. Vegito grins down at him and says nothing. Whatever else they may be, they're still Saiyans. This is all that could be expected of them. Even if he didn't want to make Gogeta bleed for the offense of existing at all.

Ah, it's so stupid. He's the strongest being this universe has to offer, and for what? Buu rendered him pointless, Zamasu made a fool out of him, and neither of them met their ends at his hands. Meanwhile, Gogeta has existed for what, a week, and already cinched a victory. Vegito knows it the same way he knows Gogeta's name, fragments of life stolen from someone else's eyes. He even knows what it felt like for the two of them to sit back and let Gogeta's cool logic ripple over them like water. The intensity of it took his breath away then. Now he shakes with fury.

Gogeta is serious where he's cocky, airheaded where he's conniving, and straightforward where he's jealous, but most of all, Gogeta is always temporary. Why would Vegeta and Kakarot become someone as troublesome and unreliable as Vegito when they can choose him? Except that as the days pass in this place where neither time nor space matter, it becomes clear that neither of them is being called on unless there's no other choice. It's reassuring, because it means it's not Vegito's fault they refuse to be him. It's infuriating, because it leaves him trapped in close quarters with the man he hates more than anything. They're not alone, but they might as well be. Gotenks is never here. 

There's nothing to do but fight, even if there's only one outcome. Gogeta is strong. Vegito is stronger. Even with their healing factors, Gogeta's body is a tapestry of injury, burns and bruises and broken bones standing out like jewelry. Vegito isn't unscathed either, but his wounds are smaller, and they disappear in seconds. Gogeta's linger for hours and days at a time. Sometimes he can't even stand, and Vegito finds himself waiting impatiently for his opponent to hurry up and heal.

“This is so inconvenient,” he grumbles, sitting cross-legged in the air above Gogeta.

“I'm not-” Cough, cough. “I'm not apologizing.”

“Hurry up and get stronger,” Vegito orders, and then wonders why. It's not like they can really train here. They're just ghosts of themselves. All their strength comes from other people.

What a lovely truth to haunt their stay here, in this place which barely exists at all. It's a space between spaces, the ghost of an empty universe, populated with scattered memories and distorted shapes. There's a sky which goes on forever and a constantly shifting landmass which goes on for considerably less. Water, too, sometimes salt and sometimes fresh. One time it was just lemonade. He still isn't sure why. Point is, even though this place is a badly-made simulacra of anything real, presumably created when the Supreme Kai forgot to carry the two on some celestial tax expense, Vegito was here first. Or at least, he was here before Gogeta, which is what matters.

Gogeta gets up eventually, running the arm that used to be broken through a few tentative stretches. It's still blue from shoulder to elbow, but it moves easily enough. When he looks over at Vegito, his eyes are glittering.

 _Stars,_ Vegito thinks again, and attacks before he can dwell on it.

“Do you hate me?” Gogeta asks at the end of this bout, still burning blue with purple fingerprints vivid at the corner of his mouth. It's such a stupid question. Vegito can't help but laugh.

“'Do I hate you?'” he echoes mockingly. “What else could this be?”

“I don't know.” Wisps of hair flicker like plasma, like stardust. “If you really hated me, I'd be dead.”

Ugh. What a ridiculous accusation. “You're not even alive, how could I kill you?”

“You have their everything,” Gogeta says, firm and measured. “You'd find a way.”

It's true and Vegito hates thinking about it, hates that he even has to acknowledge the statement. His counterpart is still hovering there, arms raised in a guard they both know won't be enough, waiting like he can see the answer rolling around behind Vegito's teeth. He surges forward and sinks his fist into Gogeta's tanned stomach rather than let it out. The pained huff of breath being forced out is music to his ears.

He likes Gogeta breathless. Likes the way the bigger man doubles over, chest heaving, trying to defend himself from a blow that's already hit. How his eyes go wide, then narrow down to slits. How his lips shine, slick and trembling, when his mouth drops open.

“There we go,” he murmurs, forcing Gogeta's head up so he can watch the tears bead at the corners of newly-black eyes. “This is better.”

Gogeta coughs so weakly Vegito can't help but smile and blinks away the tears. His lips move, but nothing comes out. Good. That simple failure lends delicious weight to another meaningless victory.

He never complains, is the thing. Doesn't scream, doesn't beg, doesn't try to set handicaps, just fights until his body gives out. He gives Vegito everything he's got and then some and Vegito responds in kind, no matter how wide the gap between them yawns. The same hunger that gnaws at Vegito's gut gleams in Gogeta's eyes, and that only makes Vegito want to hurt him more.

If this is about dominance, why doesn't he just force Gogeta down and mount him like a dog? He's pretty sure Gogeta would let him. But maybe that's the trick. Vegito doesn't want Gogeta to let him do anything. He wants Gogeta crushed and defeated, so beaten down he can't even move, ruined and pliant beneath him. He wants shuddering breaths and a hot mouth that tastes of blood, wants to trace his way down each bump and ridge of muscle and stick his fingers in the wounds, wants to savour each shudder and drink the pained whines from a tongue too bruised to scream. He wants to sink his teeth into the muscle of Gogeta's shoulder and leave scars.

 _Really,_ he thinks, _how stupid._

Then Gogeta rips himself free and there's a shining sphere of pure destruction slicing through the air where Vegito's head used to be. Time to get serious. 

It ends with the two of them in a crater – Gogeta on his back and Vegito pinning him down with one foot, blood between both their teeth. Gogeta's back in base form, but Vegito's still burning blue. The ground around them is cracked and blasted, but already filling itself back in. Vegito's arms itch as the scrapes vanish. It's not so much healing as it is injury in reverse. He frowns and rubs at the skin. 

“Does it hurt?” Gogeta rasps.

Vegito blinks down at him. “Huh?”

“It looks like it hurts.”

That answers absolutely nothing. “What's that supposed to mean?”

Gogeta turns his head carefully until his cheek is pressed flat against imitation bedrock. “Whatever goes on in your head when we're not fighting. It looks like it hurts.”

The response dies in Vegito's throat. Gogeta – can tell?

A small frown, made sharper by the bruises writing themselves over Gogeta's jaw. “Of course I noticed. You're not subtle.”

“Says the man in an orange vest,” Vegito snaps on automatic. “No, wait, let me think of a better comeback.”

Wet laughter bubbles up from Gogeta's chest. “It's fine. I'll wait.”

Vegito puts some weight on his cracked ribs just to hear the laughter turn into a pained hiss. Gogeta is still smiling. It's unbearable. Vegito wants to hook his arms around Gogeta's neck and squeeze until he feels nails clawing at his flesh. He'd do it, except that grappling is one of Gogeta's strengths, and the last time he tried he got thrown through a mountain with the consistency of taffy. Disgusting, utterly disgusting, especially the way it made his heart beat faster.

His heart is thumping rabbit-quick now. Unacceptable. Who let this happen? He's going to find them and punch them right in the mouth.

The air whooshes out of Gogeta as Vegito drops to his knees on top of him. He's still struggling for breath when Vegito leans in. A little tremor runs through him when Vegito's bangs brush his cheek. His glassy eyes reflect nothing but blue light and hunger. 

It's too much. It's not enough. Vegito grabs him by the shoulders and forces him up, closing the last few inches between them. His lips are split and bleeding, his tongue slack and confused. There's a long moment where his whole face goes still as he struggles to process. It's so much like Kakarot that Vegito laughs into his mouth.

For some reason, that does it. Gogeta's lips firm under him as strong arms close around him. When he goes to pull back, he can't. It's a struggle between them. When they finally part, Gogeta's not the only one who's breathless.

“Better?” Gogeta asks, his voice slightly less wrecked than before.

Vegito laughs, the sound uneven and maddening. “I'm going to crush you.”

Gogeta smiles again, wider. There are stars in his eyes.


	4. Chapter 4

It takes Vegito an embarrassingly long time to notice that Gogeta's face is split in half. In his defence, he wasn't actually studying his counterpart's face that much. Also, it's really hard to identify distinguishing features on someone who's been beaten half to death. Going by that logic, it follows that when Vegito starts reluctantly, and with great personal sacrifice, _not_ starting fights twenty-four seven, he would also pick up on this weird trait. 

But no. That's not what happens. What happens is that Gotenks, bright-eyed and stir crazy from not having been summoned _all month,_ so sad for him, pauses in the middle of complaining and squints at Gogeta's face, hovering closer and closer until he's nearly cross-eyed.

“Whoa,” Gotenks says in the voice of a little boy – two little boys, technically – about to make a great observation on life. “Your face is uneven.”

“That's normal,” Gogeta says, unphased. “No mortal being is completely symmetrical. Errors always occur somewhere down the road.” Judging by the speech patterns, he's quoting straight from Bulma, which makes Vegito's heart do something unpleasant.

“No, I mean, it's like–” Small hands flail around for a moment, then settle smack down the middle of Gogeta's nose and forehead. They're too little to mark the whole divide, but it gets the point across. “It's split! That's so weird! Hey, Dad Number Three, come look at this!”

Vegito smiles and materializes behind him purely to make them both jump. “Excuse you, I'm number one.”

“You're a jerk!” Gotenks shouts, shoulders up around his ears. If he had a tail, the fur would be standing on end. “Whatever, c'mere.”

“You are a jerk,” Gogeta agrees, but he holds still as Vegito nudges their sort-of kid out of the way and floats in for a closer look. There's no flicker of hesitation at letting Vegito's hands so close to his neck. Fear is an unknown word to him. 

Vegito thinks of letting someone else touch his face and can't suppress a shudder. “What am I looking at again?”

Gotenks groans and zooms up, spinning clockwise until he's floating directly above Gogeta with his feet pointed toward the sky. That gives him the leverage to carve out that divide again without disturbing Vegito's personal space. He's learned a lot from the warriors on Earth. Or maybe it's Vegito who taught him this caution.

“There, I marked it. Look,” Gotenks orders.

Vegito looks. Then he hauls Gogeta forward so he can look again, closing one eye, then the other.

“What the hell,” he says finally. He's pulled Gogeta deep into his space. They're close now – close enough for him to smell the mix of adrenaline and complete lack of fear which never fails to piss him off. Joke's on it, he's already pissed off. “How can you have half of two different faces?”

For the first time since this started, Gogeta frowns. “Huh?”

“You have half of two different faces,” Vegito repeats, smiling because that's what he does when he's seething with rage. “Guess whose.”

It's not a perfect split, is the thing. The skin tone is just about even, and so are the proportions for the most part. But once he starts seeing it he can't stop seeing it. There's a subtle sharpness to the features on the left half of Gogeta's face, beginning at the side of his proud nose and spreading outward from there. All but unnoticeable in the centre, strikingly obvious by the time you hit smooth jawline. The right half is less refined, more angular, culminating in a heavier brow and a jaw that could cut glass. That's Kakarot's jaw, just as the smooth side is Vegeta's. Even the eyes are different, though when he keeps them hooded, it's hard to tell.

“Goku,” Gogeta says quietly, “and Vegeta. Who else?”

Vegito makes an ugly noise in the back of his throat and grabs that uneven jawline. It's not a blow – not quite – so Gogeta doesn't retreat. More to the point, he doesn't even flinch. He inherited whatever misfire in Kakarot's brain leads him to just stop running threat assessments around people he trusts. Apparently, he trusts Vegito, at least when they aren't actively trying to put holes in each other. Even when the source of Vegito's hatred is quite literally written on his face.

Who else, indeed? There's no reason it would or could be anybody but them. Even so, it's unacceptable. Vegito doesn't make a habit of staring at his own face, but he's seen his reflection before in stray glass and in water. He knows what he looks like. He could be their cousin, but Gogeta – Gogeta _is_ them.

His fingers are digging too harshly into Gogeta's skin. If he weren't wearing gloves, his nails would have already broken the skin. Under normal circumstances, Gogeta would have already broken free. But Gogeta is looking through him, shoulders bowed beneath some invisible weight, and suddenly that's the worst thing in the world.

“Whatever,” Vegito says finally. “It doesn't look that cool. If you're not looking for it, you can't even tell.”

Gogeta blinks. A wave of smugness washes over Vegito as those eyes finally focus on him. “Wait, what? How does that work?”

“The fusion dance doesn't just slam two halves together, obviously. It creates a new whole. Different traits might be more dominant in different locations, but it's not like you look any different now that I can see it. So really,” Vegito concludes, “you're just a victim of some really unfortunate genetic inheritance laws.”

And now he's the one quoting Bulma, but it's hard to get worked up about that when Gogeta is smirking at him. “So in other words, I am not Goku or Vegeta, just an unlucky soul who takes after them?”

“Exactly,” Vegito says.

“I don't know what you're grumbling about,” Gotenks complains. “I think it's totally cool. Hey, hey, do I have it too?”

The answer, of course, is no. Gotenks is still pouting when he's finally called back to Earth.


	5. Chapter 5

Gogeta has never been a whole person. He came into being fully-grown, already certain what he was meant to do, and riddled with missing pieces. Some of them – the uncertainty with which he approaches his few relationships, the trouble he has picking up on what he doesn't already know, the empty space in his head where his parents' faces should be – he can place firmly on Goku and Vegeta's heads. The rest, though... the rest is all him. Or rather, isn't him.

He doesn't know what food he likes or what position he'd end up in after a fitful night's sleep. He doesn't know what his favourite time of day would be, if he'd be good with people, whether he'd get along with the friends he remembers but hasn't met for more than a few minutes. How would it feel to hold one of the children he left behind? He has no idea. The only person he's held to his chest is Gotenks. And Vegito, he supposes, but that doesn't count any more than Broly does. You can either hold someone back or hold them close, and with those guys, he's never had the luxury of choice.

No. Be honest. He's never had a choice to begin with. He has no history. No background. No home. He's an illusion, spun out of magic and an unlikely bond, meant to span the distance between 'planetary defender' and 'ruthless killer' and coming out somewhere in between. There is a space in his head set aside for Goku and Vegeta to sit, bleeding into each other but whole, and if he lets his thoughts drift he can still feel them inside him. 

It's nice, having them there. He's never once been uncertain of his purpose. He's never once been alone.

It's awful, having them there. He's never once been able to discover who he is rather than have it fed to him. He's never once known the peace of solitude.

For some reason, Gogeta thinks he would've been an angry child. Not a spiteful one, throwing tantrums for selfish reasons – one that sat silent and furious in the corners of rooms, glaring holes in anyone who looked at him. A tiny ball of rage and suppressed violence, a grenade always one step from going off. A child who fought to escape the pressure of the world.

There's no point in having these thoughts. Not for him, who skipped straight to adulthood, a man who barely even exists in the first place. He's not unhappy with his lot. No resentment wells up when he thinks of being born solely to fight other peoples' battles for them. 

But somehow, he can't help but wonder: if he were a whole person, complete unto himself, would he feel differently? He looks at Vegito, all bright smiles and bared teeth, hands trembling beneath his gloves, and suspects that he knows the answer. 

Vegito is complete in a way Gogeta isn't. If the price of completion is fever-bright eyes, teeth sunk deep into his own arm to muffle the sobs, and laughter that echoes for hours upon hours, then Gogeta isn't sure he wants it.

He will never begrudge Vegito for picking fights. Why would he? They aren't the same, but they could've been.

Besides, responding to those punches in kind is _his_ choice.


	6. Chapter 6

It takes Vegito a while to notice that Gogeta has a temper. It lies buried under layer upon layer of obliviousness, but it's there. Every once in a while, he catches a glimpse of something stirring. At first, Vegito is content to put it out of his mind – well, maybe 'content' is the wrong word. 'Apathetic' might be better, but then he'd have to rephrase the whole thought to make it flow nicely, and _ugh._ Who has the time for this? 

The point is, he knew there was something under Gogeta's bright eyes and cocky smirks, but like so many other aspects of his fellow prisoner in what Gotenks has dubbed 'the Fusion dimension,' he didn't care until it became a distraction. Now he can't stop caring. It's a problem.

What he's trying to talk around is this: the last time Gotenks stuck around for than about a month, the kid wouldn't stop whining about how much his _other_ parents sucked, and Vegito might have run his mouth a little. Just a bit. Just enough to note that Gotenks should think twice about calling people who leave him in limbo for months on end his parents. As soon as he saw the look on the kid's face, he regretted it, but by then it was too late. Gotenks was tearing up, yelling, and doing his best to hit and make it hurt. Each little blow made the sick, sad thing in Vegito's stomach twist. His mouth was starting to hurt from smiling, because that's what he does when he kinda wants to die.

Then Gogeta teleported in, burning gold, green eyes wild, and grabbed Gotenks out of the air. The kid was so distraught he didn't even fight it, just wrapped his arms around Gogeta's neck and clung on like a monkey. It was terribly fitting. 

“What did you say to him?” Gogeta snarled, incandescent, and that – that was fitting, too. Vegito had seen him in Super Saiyan before, harsh and focused, closed-off in a way he never was in base or even Blue. This fury was a natural extension of that.

Vegito just hadn't expected Gogeta's anger to be so bright. He wasn't a star anymore, but a supernova. It was almost hypnotizing.

Almost, because Gotenks was stumbling through an explanation, his face red and blotchy, and Vegito was rapidly re-evaluating his odds of surviving the encounter. It was one thing to know he outclassed Gogeta on just about every level and another thing to convince his primal monkey brain of that.

“Never speak that way to him again!” Gogeta thundered, and Vegito had a sudden impulse to just... break. Fall to his knees and spill everything out, the sucking nothingness in his head, the awful spike of pain every time he remembered how useless he'd turned out to be, how staying in this nowhere place was slowly driving him mad. Cry, maybe. 

Awful. Vegito tucked all of that filth under a smile and beamed at Gogeta instead. If he didn't meet Gotenks' still-watery eyes, it was only because the height difference made it inconvenient. “What, so I'm supposed to lie?”

“You're his father! Act like it!” 

“How?” Vegito asked. It came out so much more plaintive than he intended. “I mean, it's not like I care–” He definitely had some kind of cool retort planned, but it died under the force of Gogeta's glare.

“Then find something to care about!” Gogeta snapped, mismatched eyes burning hot, and flew away with Gotenks cradled in his arms. Vegito watched mutely as his back shrank into the distance, utterly transfixed and utterly confused. 

He'd heard Gogeta yell before, sure – kiai during combat and wordless noises of pain. His counterpart had never screamed from sheer rage, though. This was a first.

That was the first time he really became aware that Gogeta had inherited Vegeta's temper. More importantly, it was the first time he really became aware that he'd inherited Kakarot's weakness to it. Back then, he shrugged it off. At least this unwanted and involuntary feeling was a distraction from, you know, everything else. Except that, like most things involving Gogeta, once he starts noticing it he can't stop. It is so, so hard to make Gogeta angry – his fuse is longer than Bulma or Chi-Chi's ever was – but the results are so, so satisfying. It's awful. If Vegito ever has the opportunity to meet Kakarot and Vegeta in person, he is going to strangle them.

 _Why,_ he thinks, as close to despair as he'll ever let himself get, _did we have to be made from a guy who loves yelling and a guy who loves being yelled at?_


	7. Chapter 7

Gogeta spent his last minutes gazing up at the moon. There was no motive behind it, no goal, no driving force; just a faint itching beneath his skin where the light touched. He has no tail, so there's no risk, but that only occurred to him after. He learned then that things slip his mind easily when he's not focused. But oh, it was worth it to let his mind go blank for a few precious seconds, to let an odd, instinctive bliss chase the fear from him.

The Saiyans had no holidays. He knew this with all the conviction of Vegeta, but then, as now, he couldn't bring himself to believe it. Could a whole people really live with such a strong connection to the moon and not build up a culture around it?

No, he thinks with all the certainty of Goku. That's not how people work. Perhaps Frieza stole this from the Saiyans as well as their lives and their pride. But if anything from those days lingers, buried in Vegeta's early memory, Gogeta can't dig it up.

Broly might know. But Broly was terrified of Gogeta in the end, and Gogeta can't blame him. It's only fair to be afraid of the man who was going to kill you. That's why Gogeta spent his last minutes watching the moon at too high an altitude for anyone he knew to bother him, not thinking about anything but the play of soft light over distant craters. He'd made his decision. That didn't mean he wanted to dwell on it.

There is an art to cognitive dissonance. It shows in the curve of Vegito's feral smile, the pitch of carefree laughter as blood flies through the air. The longer Gogeta stays here, in this space between spaces, the more of that art he picks up. 

Some parts he knows already. Deflection, self-deception, refusing to think too deeply about the things that might hurt. Avoiding fear. Avoiding pain. Those, he unlearns, piece by piece, unpicking the stitches to the rhythm of Vegito's blows. 

In this timeless place, the only thing he can change is himself.

He picks himself up in the aftermath of a beating, feeling hot and grounded and so, so weak, the quiet terror in his head muffled. Vegito is there, talking, but Vegito is always talking. Gogeta will listen later. Right now, he tunes it out and tilts his head upward, tongue probing curiously at a regenerating tooth. 

The dark sky above them is unbroken. He wonders if Vegito misses the moon, too.


	8. Chapter 8

Vegito moves like he was made to fly. Every step is light and breezy, as likely to end in flight as it is for his feet to come down. He walks with the haste of a grounded bird, counting the seconds until it can take wing. He never runs when he can jump. Once he's in the air, he spirals and corkscrews like smoke, casually pulling maneuvers that make Gogeta's spine ache to think about.

It's like gravity doesn't have quite as tight a hold on him. A silly thought, especially since Gogeta can fly as well, but it's never the same for him. Isn't that the story of their lives?

“Hey,” Vegito drawls, spinning 360 degrees vertically so he can curl himself around Gogeta's shoulders, “whatcha looking at?”

“You,” Gogeta says. 

Vegito chokes. “W-what the hell – you're not supposed to just say that!”

“Why not?” There isn't much point in denial. Not when Gogeta's been sitting cross-legged on a spongy mountain, pretending to nurse his broken arm and actually watching Vegito soar, for upwards of fifteen minutes.

“You're supposed to be scared of me!”

Huh. Gogeta tilts his head to the side and rolls that thought that over slowly. Is he afraid of Vegito?

Yeah, he decides finally, he probably is. It's difficult not to be scared of something that can and will hurt you, after all. At the same time, the fear isn't exactly at the forefront of his brain right now. Or ever, come to think of it. Even that first sucker punch, the one that snapped him out of the haze of a man about to die, didn't inspire terror. Mostly, Gogeta remembers being utterly shocked. He hadn't expected to keep existing after the fusion ended. He hadn't expected to ever meet Vegito. But he did on both counts, and the thought makes him smile.

Even thinking about that first confused, glorious fight gets his blood pumping. His arm can't heal quick enough. But Vegito is still looking at him, something fragile dancing behind black eyes, and Gogeta can't leave him without an answer.

In the end, he shrugs. “So?”

“So you're an idiot,” Vegito snaps. “You should be – I don't know, trying to avoid my attention. Begging for mercy. That sort of thing.”

Gogeta gives that exactly as much thought as it deserves. “Sounds boring.”

“You're boring!” Vegito snaps. “Wait, no, crap, forget I said that. Ugh, don't grin, I wanna hit you.” White-gloved fingers prod at the sharp bend of Gogeta's upper arm – the humerus, Bulma would call it, though he's not sure she'd be right. Saiyan anatomy isn't human anatomy, after all. “Why do you have to be so breakable?”

“Dunno.” Gogeta shrugs, unbothered by the flash of pain. “Things are just like that sometimes.”

“Well, stop.” Vegito glowers at him for a second, then flies off in a huff. For all his bad temper, there's a certain weight that drops away from him when his feet leave the ground. It's the illusion of freedom. For a moment, it must feel like he can go anywhere. 

The illusion won't last. Soon enough, he'll fly too high, and the sky will stretch and invert around him. He'll find himself flying down towards the patchwork world he's trying to leave behind. The rage will blossom then, beautiful and terrible, turning teeth into knives and frustration into bloodlust. Gogeta's afraid of that, too, and yet he's already looking forward to it. Slowly, agonizingly, the fingers of his broken arm clench into a fist.

Things could go so, so badly for him here, in this place where training is meaningless and Vegito will always be so, so much stronger than him. He knows it. Vegito knows it. And yet they can't keep their hands off each other. It feels like he's being indulged, except that Vegito needs this too, and he is so, so glad that it's not just him who would fall apart alone. When Gogeta moves, he does so for a purpose, and Vegito is the only purpose he has left.

Maybe it's a Saiyan thing, to crave that which could destroy you. Maybe it's just Gogeta. Either way, he can't bring himself to care.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Saiyan relationships sure are weird.


	9. Chapter 9

It’s late. Too late for fighting, much as Vegito hates to admit it. The light has drained out of their fake little world, Gogeta pulled some nasty ki trick in their last battle that left him actually feeling sore, and more importantly, Gogeta physically can’t stand back up right now. His counterpart is lying down now, stiff black hair falling back from his forehead, looking up at the empty sky. Vegito is looking down at him, instead. Not because the lack of stars is unsettling. He just likes watching Gogeta’s bruises vanish like water down the drain more. 

It’s late. It’s quiet. It’s almost peaceful. Then Gogeta opens his mouth. “What would it be like if we were real Saiyans?”

“We are real,” Vegito bites out. Irritation sings through him, a pale imitation of rage.

Black eyes glance up, considering. “You might be. I’m not.” 

Gogeta isn’t trying to piss him off. He’s never trying to piss Vegito off. He just says it so calmly, so matter-of-factly, that it’s all Vegito can do not to explode. 

He sets his jaw and swallows back the poison. Grin, damn it, grin. “Where’d this come from, huh?”

“The moon is bright tonight.” Gogeta’s eyes wander away from Vegito’s face, back to the sky behind him. After a moment, Vegito spares a glance upward. Huh. There is a moon up there. That’s new. “A replica moon for a replica sky.”

There’s a weight to those words Vegito doesn’t understand and doesn’t like. He shifts noisily just to drag those eyes back to him. When that doesn’t work, Vegito grabs Gogeta’s chin and turns his head around. He’s a little surprised when Gogeta lets him. If it was Vegito being manhandled like this while he was down, he’d throw a fit.

But they aren’t the same person, even if they should be. That’s the problem.

“So what?” Vegito asks, staring deep into Gogeta’s eyes. “It’s real while we’re looking at it.”

For a moment, Gogeta simply looks at him. Then he blinks slowly, consideringly, the way Kakarot does when he’s thinking, though the crooked tilt of his lips is all Vegeta. “If I were real, I’d be a pretty bad Saiyan,” he says. “Head full of clouds.”

Vegito huffs. “Then think less and heal more.”

“Don’t know if it works that way. I’m not actually controlling this regeneration, you know.”

“Of course I know! If you could control it, you wouldn’t keep me waiting like this!” 

Gogeta laughs, short, almost curt, and moves closer. The moon hangs luminous, reflected in his eyes. “No, I wouldn’t.”

Vegito’s chest goes tight. He can’t breathe right. He doesn’t like it. He’s almost glad when Gogeta looks back up at the moon. 

“It’s not real. But things are better with it hanging there.”

The words _it won’t last_ leap to Vegito’s lips. He swallows them down with the rest of the venom that gathers on his tongue. Moonlight pours down the curves of Gogeta’s face, and for a moment, he’s neither Kakarot nor Vegeta. Just one more Saiyan gazing skyward, dreaming of surpassing the heavens.

As long as they’re trapped here, it will never happen. But it’s good to have a goal, Vegito supposes. Having something – or someone – to focus on can mean the world.

“Hey,” he says, and stops. Where was he going with that, exactly? What was he going to say? 

_Please keep looking at me? Stay here, no matter what?_ Come on, that’s just pathetic.

But even unsaid, the feeling remains.

_Don’t leave me alone._


End file.
